Monday, August 29, 2005

Movie Review--Must Love Dogs

This one got so-so reviews, but I enjoyed it. It's about Sarah (Diane Lane), a preschool teacher, who is trying to move on with her life after a divorce. Well-meaning friends and family try to set her up at every turn. Her sister even puts her profile on perfectmatch.com, saying that Sarah's perfect match "must love dogs" even though Sarah doesn't own a dog and actually borrows one to meet a new man, Jake (John Cusack) at the dog park. Jake's dog was also borrowed, as it turns out. Jake really likes her, but she is less impressed by him. She is more enamored of Bob (Dermot Mulroney), the father of one of her preschool students, who is in the process of getting divorced and a bit of a womanizer. But when they get together, she is quickly disillusioned, and realizes she went for the wrong guy. So she is really happy when she runs into Jake, until she realizes that he is accompanied by another woman. So will Sarah and Jake finally get together? Oh, the suspense!

The movie isn't terribly original; it's a fairly standard romantic comedy, with the usual misunderstandings that get in the way of people getting together. However, it's funny and charming. Anyone who likes romantic comedies will probably like this.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Random Thought #10: Cats on a Leash

I am a cat person. I like cats better than dogs. Cats don't bark, they don't slobber all over you, and they don't have bad breath. Also, I'm scared of big dogs. These are just some of the advantages of cats as opposed to dogs.

It's very rare that I will admit to any advantages that dogs may have over cats. I will grudging admit to one, though.

The vet (see Random Thought #9) thought my cats were doing pretty well. The only thing is that they are a little bit overweight. So, I want to try to exercise them more. This would be easier if I could take them for a walk, like you can with a dog. I have heard that cats can be leash trained, but I am not sure I can do this with my cats--I wonder if you have to start when they are really young? I don't want to just drag them behind me. Also, I think they'd need harnesses, because they've always wiggled out of any collar I put on them, and I sure wouldn't want them to escape. I have been playing with them, but I am rather lazy. I do like to go for walks, though, so if I could just take them with me, it would be easier. It occurs to me that I have never seen anyone take a cat for a walk, whether or not they can be leash trained.

So, one advantage of dogs over cats--dogs like to go for walks. Personally, though, I think that's it. Hopefully I won't get hate mail over this :-). It's just a personal preference; I know that dog people love their dogs just as much as I love my cats. Pets are good, no matter what your preference.

Monday, August 22, 2005

Movie Review--The 40-Year-Old Virgin

Another fun movie. Steve Carell plays a man (Andy) who is still hasn't had his first sexual experience at age 40 (hence the title). His friends at work try to "help" him, which results in, for starters, an excruciating (and incomplete) chest-waxing experience, and an excursion to a bar, where Andy leaves with a woman who vomits on him before they can get down to business. After that, Andy wasn't really in the mood.

Andy meets a nice woman whom he wants to get to know better (played by Catherine Keener). For her first visit to his apartment, his friends convince him she cannot see it as it is, complete with a framed Asia poster and a very complete collection of action figures. They remove anything which might be regarded as "adolescent", after which the apartment is completely empty. Andy has to tell her he is having his carpet replaced. Then he has to deal with the complexities of condom usage, and his new girlfriend's hostile teenage daughter, who walks in at just the wrong moment.

The only thing I didn't like about this movie was that the emotionally stunted theme was taken a bit far. I mentioned the adolescent apartment. Also, Andy rode a bike to work every day because he'd never learned to drive a car. However, Andy is a genuinely nice and likeable guy, and the movie is genuinely funny.

Saturday, August 20, 2005

Book Review--Murder of a Smart Cookie, by Denise Swanson

This is very light reading, but fun. It is the latest in a series of books about Skye Denison, a school psychologist and amateur sleuth. Skye's latest adventure occurs over summer vacation. Skye always gets another job during the summer for extra money, and this summer she is on job #3 when her boss from job #2 is found murdered.

Skye's normal summer job as a lifeguard hadn't worked out. The beach where she had worked had been closed for swimming due to an invasion of geese (apparently bird shit is very toxic). So she'd gotten a job in an antiques store, only to be fired when she told a customer that the vase she was trying to sell was worth far more than the store owner had offered to pay. Her third job, working for her uncle as the coordinator of the First Annual Route 66 Yard Sale. It's a huge event and made an even larger headache than it might otherwise be due to the difficulty of working for her uncle. But at least the pay is very good, enough for Skye to make a down payment on her cottage, which she has been renting for the past few years.

For a small town, Scumble River (the fictitious town which is the setting for all these books) seems to have an extremely high murder rate. This time the victim is Cookie Caldwell, Skye's former boss at the antique shop, and her body is found in Skye's family's booth at the yard sale. The sheriff thinks that Skye did it. Skye investigates on her own in an attempt to clear her name.

Anyway, I always really enjoy these books. I like books in a series; when I get to like a character I like to read more about them.

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Vanishing Acts, by Jodi Picoult

Delia Hopkins has a great life. She has a wonderful daughter and a terrific fiance. She has a great career, helping police departments track down missing persons with her search and rescue bloodhound, Greta. But her life is shattered in an instant when her father is arrested for kidnapping her when she was only four.

Delia's father had told her that her mother was dead. Delia has no memory of her mother or of being Bethany Mathews, which was her name before she was kidnapped. She has no memory of visiting a Harlem crackhouse in the dead of night with her father, Andrew, to get new identities, those of a father and daughter killed in a car crash.

Andrew is extradited to Arizona, where they had lived before he kidnapped Delia. Delia's lawyer fiance, Eric, associates with an Arizona attorney and takes on the job of defending Andrew against the kidnapping charges. Fitz, a journalist and the best friend of both Eric and Delia since childhood, follows them all to Arizona, ostensibly to write a story, but really due to his deep and enduring feelings for Delia.

Delia meets her mother, Elise, for the first time since age four. She demands that her father tell her why he deprived her of her mother for all these years. When she learns the truth, she realizes that her idealized image of her mother never existed.

The book, as with all of Picoult's books, alternates between different points of view--Delia's, Eric's, Fitz's, Andrew's, and Elise's. Delia tries to cope with the fact that her whole life has been turned upside down. Andrew's defense takes its toll on Eric, an alcoholic who starts drinking again. Fitz tries to help Delia and has a harder and harder time dealing with his feelings for her. Andrew copes with life in prison as a 60-year-old first-time offender. Elise recalls the past--the baby she lost after Delia, her feelings that Delia's father could not love her as she loved him, and her downward spiral. With the alternating viewpoints, everyone tells their own story and you see how they might end up making choices that most of us would think were the wrong thing to do. Even if you still don't agree with the choices they made, you can see how they might have made them. The message here is that there are no moral absolutes.

Sunday, August 14, 2005

Birthright, by Nora Roberts

This story begins in 1974. Three-month-old Jessica Cullen is out at the shopping mall with her big brother, Doug, 3, and her mother. They are waiting in line for Doug to see Santa Claus. But when it was his turn, Doug got scared, wriggled his way out of Santa's grasp, hit the ground, and wet his pants. His mother rushed forward to help, and when she turned back toward Jessica's stroller, it was empty.

Fast forward to 2003. Callie Dunbrook is an archaeologist. She is recruited to work on a dig in rural Maryland, where a worker at a construction site had unearthed a 5000-year-old human skull. The site had been slated for development, and many people are not happy (possibly murderously unhappy) about being out of work so that an archaeological dig can take place there instead. Furthermore, Callie has to work the site with her ex-husband. But Callie is completely shaken to the core when a strange woman approaches her, saying she believes Callie to be her long-lost daughter.

Callie doesn't believe her, but cannot rest until she checks out the woman's story. It turns out that Callie, who studies the past, has quite a lot to learn about her own past. However, someone very dangerous does not want her to learn the truth.

This book has a lot of intrigue. There is the mystery of Callie's past and a woman's missing daughter. The book is also part murder mystery and part romance. The archaelogical dig itself is more backdrop than central to the story, though the discussions about uncovering an ancient civilization are very interesting. Callie's profession as an archaeologist is a sort of metaphor; she works as obsessively to uncover the past in her personal life as she does in her professional one. All in all, it's a very interesting read.

Saturday, August 13, 2005

Movie Review--Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

This movie was a lot of fun. I saw the 1971 version when it was on TV, and my second-grade teacher read the book to the class, but since both of these events occurred around 1978, I remember very little about either the book or the first movie. So I can't compare them with this latest movie version. I can say that Johnny Depp was very good as the eccentric Willy Wonka.

Most people probably know the basic premise of the story. Charlie is one of five children who gets a gold ticket in a chocolate bar. The prize is getting to visit Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. Plus, one of the five kids will get another special prize.

Charlie is definitely the most needy of the five children. He lives in a tiny, rundown house with his parents and both sets of grandparents, and they eat cabbage soup every day. His dad has a job at the toothpaste factory, until his job is taken over by a machine. Charlie is also the only one of the kids who is not a brat. He manages to be sweet without being saccharine. The others are 1) a rich, extremely spoiled girl from England, whose father had his workers check candy bars by the boxload in search of a gold ticket, 2) an extremely overweight boy whose parents don't seem to feel it necessary to limit his chocolate intake, 3) a fiercely competitive little beauty queen from Atlanta who has been chewing the same piece of gum for months to try to set a record, and 4) an obnoxious little boy who watches TV and plays video games all the time.

The children, each with an adult guardian along, get a tour of the factory. But it isn't all pleasant for bratty, misbehaving children!

The humor is probably more for adults than kids. Also, the scene where Veruca (the spoiled rich girl) gets dragged away by squirrels would probably scare younger children. In general, though, it's a movie that appeals to both older kids and adults.

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Random Thought #9: The Vet: An Essay in Three Voices

I didn't get the carriers out soon enough. Whenever I have to take the cats anywhere, I always take the carriers out early, usually a day in advance. The cats bolt when they first see them, but then they get over being suspicious, and it's easier to actually get them into the carriers when it's time to go. I forgot to set them out the night before, so I set them out at about 10 in the morning, when their appointment was at five. This was enough for Carmela to relax a little, but Moonie was still highly suspicious, enough so to hide not just under the bed, but up in a hole they've clawed in the foundation. I couldn't even see her. I had to take everything out from under the bed (I store things under there since I don't have all that much space), take off the mattress, and shake out the foundation until she kind of fell out. I felt like a monster since she was so scared, and my bedroom looks like a heroin addict ransacked it, searching desperately for a new stash.

Moonie: For some reason, my human doesn't seem to understand that when I hide under the bed, it means I don't want to go where she wants me to go. I knew, as always, that it was bad news when my human got out the carriers; two carriers, so I knew that meant both Carmela and I were going somewhere. Unless I could elude her. Carmela is way too trusting. She forgets about the carriers right away and plays right into our human's hands. So anyway, I thought I had the perfect hiding spot. Carmela and I have clawed holes into the foundation of the bed for just such a purpose. I couldn't believe that my human was able to even find me and then actually get to me. Now the bedroom looks like a tornado hit it. She has messed up my space.

Carmela: I always freak out when I see the pet carriers. Moonie tells me to stay away from them, and I do, at first. But I always forget, eventually. So our human puts me in a carrier and I have to wait forever while she tries to get Moonie into her carrier. It's not fair. Moonie is bad, so I have to suffer. But Moonie is so passive when we actually get to the vet. She just lets them do whatever they want without putting up a fight. Me, I won't let them weigh me without trying to wiggle out of their grasp. I try to keep them from giving me any shots or doing any tests, but then they give me drugs to make me sleepy. I go on hunger strikes if I have to stay over. I cannot believe that my human does not try to stop them from poking and prodding and drugging me. She is not a good mom. But I always forgive her, because I forget to stay mad at her. Moonie is a little better at holding a grudge.

Well, I would write more, but it's really late, and I still have to clean up the bedroom before I can go to sleep. Besides, vet day is rough on everyone.

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Vector, by Robin Cook

Medical thrillers are among my favorites. I particularly liked Vector because it featured two characters, Laurie Montgomery and Jack Stapleton, that have been in some of Cook's other novels. Both are medical examiners that tend to go above and beyond the call of duty in investigating suspicious deaths. Some of their latest cases suggest biological warfare.

It begins when Jack conducts an autopsy on the body of a former rug merchant. He determines that the man died of anthrax. When he learns of the man's profession, he figures that the he might have contracted it through anthrax spores on some of the rugs he sold, since some were furs and hides imported from countries where the animal form of anthrax is a problem. So he figures the mystery is probably solved, but something doesn't quite feel right. Little does he know of the impending danger to thousands of people.

Yuri is a taxi driver who worked in a biotechnology lab in the USSR before the breakup of the Soviet Empire. He dislikes America and its government and particularly hates Jewish people. He gets involved with a skinhead militia called the People's Aryan Army, led by two men he considers friends, Curt and Steve. Curt and Steve don't necessarily trust people of Russian descent, but they befriend Yuri because of his anti-semitism, his hatred of the US government, and the fact that he has the knowledge to build a bioweapon of mass destruction. Yuri sets up a lab in his basement and begins growing anthrax and botulinum toxin.

On a personal level, Laurie dashes the hopes of two would-be suitors, Jack and Lou, a police detective, when she introduces them to her new boyfriend. Neither Lou nor Jack much care for Laurie's new flame, jealousy perhaps accounting for some of their dislike. However, it doesn't take long for Lou to uncover some very disturbing information about him.

Meanwhile, Jack gets another baffling case. It isn't a case that he is assigned to autopsy, but rather a case that a friend has asked him to look into. The friend's sister has just died, and he is convinced her husband killed her, though her doctors did not suspect foul play. Jack has to move fast and bend some rules to get some fluid and skin cells to test. He also discovers that part of the reason the doctors had not suspected foul play was that her husband had lied about some of her medical history. Initial lab results did not suggest anything out of the ordinary. Jack discusses the case with Laurie, who suggests botulism. Jack is astonished when lab tests confirm this.

The question is whether Laurie and Jack can figure out what is going on in time to prevent many more deaths.

This is a really interesting book, but pretty scary to think about, especially since much of what is said about bioweapons in this book is based in fact.

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Angels and Demons, by Dan Brown

I read The Da Vinci Code about a year and a half ago and found it quite fascinating. Angels and Demons is a prequel to this; it is the first book featuring Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon.

The book begins with Robert receiving an early morning call. A physicist in a major Swiss reserach facility (CERN) has been murdered, and the center director wants Robert to analyze a symbol seared into the murdered man's chest. It is the word "Illuminati" written as an ambigram (the word looks the same both upside-down and rightside-up). The Illuminati were an ancient Italian brotherhood of learned men who objected to the teachings of the Catholic Church. Four of their members were brutally murdered by the church, and the others fled Italy. A new Illuminati emerged, one bent on revenge. And, despite all the academic evidence that the Illuminati no longer exists, it appears that they are exacting their revenge against the Catholic Church.

Whoever murdered the physicist also stole a vial of antimatter, a subtance identical to matter except that its particles' electrical charges are opposite to those found in matter. Antimatter is highly unstable, and a very small amount has a blast radius of nine city blocks. And it turns out that whoever stole it plans to blow up Vatican City. Furthermore, the Pope has recently died, and the four men who were the top choices to be the next Pope (the preferiti) were kidnapped. One will be killed each hour, until all are dead, and then Vatican City will be destroyed.

Robert teams up with Vittoria Vetra, the murdered physicist's adopted daughter and a physicist herself, and together they try to find the cardinals before it is too late. Meanwhile, members of the Swiss Guard try to find the canister of antimatter. In their search, Robert and Vittoria attempt to locate markers on an ancient path to the Illuminati lair.

I would have to say that I definitely learned a lot in reading both The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons. The Author's Note at the beginning of Angels and Demons states that the Illuminati actually did exist, and that the references to works of art, tombs, tunnels, and architecture in Rome, as well as their locations, is factual and that all of these things can still be seen today. Furthermore, it is very thought-provoking reading in terms of science and religion and how these can be intertwined (if they can be), ethics, and so on. For example, the murdered physicist, who was also a Catholic Priest, believed that he had scientifically proved that some of the occurances in Genesis were at least possible, but this was very upsetting to some religious people, who believed that trying to prove such things scientifically was actually demeaning to God. Definitely fascinating reading.